A sign that Afghanistan is about to unravel

September 7 2002

US failure to deliver on its promises, plus a sense of defeat among the Pathan majority, points to disaster, writes Ahmed Rashid.

Kabul's bloodiest day since the defeat of the Taliban last December - and the assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai in Kandahar - represent more than just a build-up by al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists to the first anniversary of September 11.

Until last week, when senior United States officials announced a change of policy towards Afghanistan, Washington and European capitals had ignored strong signals from Kabul that Afghanistan may be close to unravelling again.

For months, President Karzai, United Nations officials and other experts have warned that the West's failure to provide sufficient international peacekeepers and speed up funds for promised reconstruction would be massively detrimental.

Last week, US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz said the focus of the Bush administration would now shift from chasing the remnants of al Qaeda to expanding peacekeeping troops to cities beyond Kabul, and ensuring the world delivers more money for Afghanistan's reconstruction.

The fact that it may be too late for a US policy shift that should have occurred months ago will have hit home in Washington.");document.write("

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Clearly the Taliban and al Qaeda are still around and continue to present a threat to the Kabul government by their continued acts of terrorism.

But their presence has less to do with failure by US and British forces to apprehend them, and far more to do with the lack of resources at Mr Karzai's disposal to win over his own people and keep promises to improve their lives - resources the West has been expected to deliver since January.

Mr Karzai was attacked in his home town of Kandahar.

Police named the would-be assassin as Abdur Rehman, from the Kajaki area of the southern province of Helmand,a former Taliban stronghold.

For Mr Karzai, it will prove equally irksome to be constantly reminded that the President, a Pathan tribal chief, was protected by US Special Forces and not his own people. The reality is that the majority Pathan population of Afghanistan has become increasingly estranged from the government in Kabul and from their only prominent representative in Kabul, the President himself.

The Pathans carry the huge burden that many of them supported the Taliban. Their self-esteem is at an all-time low and they now see themselves as victims of persecution by other ethnic groups, such as the powerful Tajik group in the government who dominate the military, the police and the intelligence services.

Taliban leaders still at large and the renegade extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are feeding on this Pathan lack of self-esteem, preaching a new form of radical Islamic Pathan nationalism that, in the absence of economic improvement in their lives, is appealing to some.

The Tajik leaders are preparing for a massive commemoration on September 9, the first anniversary of the assassination of their leader Ahmad Shah Massoud by al Qaeda suicide bombers.

For many Pathans, such celebrations are only another reminder of how low they have fallen, that they have all too few heroes and that their lives have not changed.

The bomb blasts in Kabul may have more to do with delivering a message to the Tajiks than being a terrorist attempt to remind people of September 11.

The revival of Pathan nationalism has been further fuelled by the perception that the US military presence in Afghanistan favours the Tajiks and other ethnic groups who resisted the Taliban.

However, the essential message of the attacks was to the international community, and the Americans in particular, which has failed Afghanistan and the Afghan people after making so many promises that it would help to change people's lives. Telegraph